Stack Overflow survey finds devs hooked on AI, but not totally sold on its judgment
Source attribution matters to 79% of respondents – handy for a company licensing its Q&A archive to model builders
Stack Overflow's latest survey demonstrates that developers are increasingly relying on AI tools for their daily tasks. Out of 30,903 respondents representing 169 countries, 10,926 daily AI users spent nearly four hours daily on the technology. While 80 percent of these users utilized AI tools for at least an hour a day, only 7 percent trusted AI output for critical work decisions.
Conversely, 48 percent trusted AI when they could easily verify its output. Source attribution was considered crucial by 79 percent of developers when deciding on trust in AI-generated technical answers.
Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar acknowledged developers' skepticism, stating that as AI agents become more autonomous, trust acts as a necessary "safeguard". The survey revealed that 66 percent of developers used coding assistants, 63 percent used general-purpose chat tools, and 26 percent used automated agent workflows.
However, 17 percent reported not using AI tools at all. The platform's commercial partnerships with AI companies have faced criticism, particularly with its early 2024 introduction of OverflowAPI, which required AI providers to attribute answers to relevant Stack Overflow posts. This led to user discontent, with some opting to remove their posts to avoid contributing to model training.
The survey also noted that 52 percent of respondents had acquired a new coding skill or programming language this year, with AI code-generation tools being a primary learning resource.
Written by urgent.news from The Register's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
This story
This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.
